The selection of exposed photographic plates above includes several of an 1889 occultation of Jupiter by the Moon (lying flat), one of a series of Mars plates from 1890 (propped upright at center), and an 8x10-inch plate of the waning crescent of a 27 day-old Moon from 1899. Identifying data were usually written in ink in a plate's emulsion after it had been developed and allowed to dry. Envelopes with similar annotations protected the plates, which were ultimately filed in the observatory's "plate vault."

Various cameras were devised for different kinds of photography: planetary, lunar, nebular, wide-field, spectrographic, and so on. The instrument at left is an "enlarging camera" designed for planetary work with Lick's 36-inch refractor. Learn more.

Lick Historical Collections, photographic plate archive and catalog no. SO000218.